Tuesday, July 20, 1971: Rain. The sky was fully clouded over again this morning. We made it over to the service station by 7:45 a.m. It opened at 8:00 a.m. and immediately had a jam of gas customers. We got the tire fixed again by 9:30 a.m. They replaced the large boot, which had been applied twice unsuccessfully, with a smaller patch. Finally, we were on our way west toward Wonder Lake. At Mile 16, 10:35 a.m., we stopped to look at a bull moose willow grazing up slope too far away to photograph. At Mile 17 we saw a Ptarmigan. Philip got photos of two adults with their young. At Mile 18 we looked for foxes as reported to us by photographer Charlie Ott, whom we had met at the Post Office before we left Savage River. No foxes were at home. We reached Teklanitka in time for lunch beside the Teklanitka River in the same spot as we did before. After lunch, we ran into some excitement along Igloo Mountain, where Philip spotted some mountain Dall sheep. We stopped to look long at them, passing the binoculars between the three of us. They were in three groups, 13 sheep in total. We also saw another small group closer down on the far side of Igloo Creek. We stopped again about 4:00 p.m. on the climb up to Highway Pass. Philip made a Hasselblad 2 ¼ image looking back at Polychrome Pass with a foreground of dryas flowers, as on the hillside. The sky continued heavy with clouds and temperatures remained cool. We caught not a single glimpse of Mt. Denali all day. We reached Ellison Visitor Center after it closed at about 5:45 p.m. I cooked a cornbread and beans dinner while Philip photographed Sunset Glacier with the 4×5 view camera. Thorofare River was beautiful with Muldrow Glacier and lower colorful slopes of grey and gold rock and talus. I put David to bed before we left. Philip took a 2 ¼ picture of an interesting effect of light falling on Sunset Glacier behind a grey cloud curtain with a straight line bottom. Onward slowly we drove, while admiring the beautiful delicate colors of what was visible. Rain started and continued all the way to Wonder Lake. When we arrived, the campground was pretty well filled with campers. So, we parked with permission over near Wonder Lake, for which they charged us $2.00. It was still raining when we went to sleep.

(Continued in the next blog post in the series, “Denali National Park, Alaska Travel Log 22.”)

Has it ever rained for days on any of your travels? Were you able to photograph or do other activities?

Monday, July 19, 1971: Philip woke up first again. We were back in the sunshine of Riley Creek Campground, where we also camped a few nights ago. Night before last we tried Toklat Road Camp, but crowds there drove us back here. Philip at the wheel, took us out of Riley Creek Campground, while we ate breakfast en route toward Denali National Park Headquarters. We made our first picture stop at Toklat Bridge for the view upstream at the Toklat River with the 4X5 View Camera. The wind was stiff and the sky again beautiful with scattered clouds; an utterly different type from yesterday. A short distance on we stopped for our first view of the day of Mt. Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley). This view was not visible yesterday afternoon. By 6:40 am the sky had become cloudless.

On the climb up the road toward Polychrome Pass a red fox trotted across the road. Philip stopped and pulled out his 35 mm camera. David and I remained in the camper cab. Next thing we knew, the fox was trotting toward us with a half consumed ground squirrel in his mouth. Philip pursued the fox. The fox, while indifferent to us, occasionally stopped and looked back at Philip. He said he thought he had made several good photographs of the fox. As we climbed Polychrome Mountain, we stopped again for a picture across the green valley with tawny lower slopes and snow and rock contrasting higher ridges. We made another stop at Mile 47 for a cold breakfast and another photograph of Mt. Denali in the full sun without a cloud. (See PhilipHyde.com for more photographs of Alaska.)

We proceeded to the next photo stop for the braided pattern of a partially dry stream to the North and another to the East of the braided water streams reflecting in the light. By Mile 46, Mt. Denali was beginning to haul in a few clouds. Just beyond Mile 46 and at the top of Polychrome Pass, Philip stopped again for photographs with the view camera and the 2 ¼ Hasselblad. The next stop at around 9:30 am was for a Hasselblad photograph of Caribou on the skyline of green bald hills climbing to Sable Pass, followed by a 35 mm photograph of a bill Caribou on a snow patch at the top of Sable Pass.

Flat tires had become somewhat routine and we had another one at Sanctuary River. We then drove on to the service station at Park Headquarters. After the tire repair, we went over to the train depot to pick up our mail. We met Celia Hunter of Camp Denali, who was there to pick up her group of guests. After lunch and business taken care of, we drove back to Denali Lakes to visit Ginny Wood and Celia Hunter. As we arrived at Denali Lakes, we heard the hiss of air escaping from the tire we just had fixed. We turned around and retraced our progress back to the service station to have it fixed again. We pulled over to the Train Station area for dinner in the Camper. Off again we went, this time to Savage River Campground. On arrival at Savage River, we heard the familiar hiss of air escaping again. On returning to the service station a third time, we found it closed. Thus ended what was fortunately an unusually clear and warm day in Denali National Park. “Big Muh,” as David called Mt. Denali, was in view the entire day.